>> >> >> > President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, >> > Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General >> > John D. Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions >> > of the Constitution of the United States of America. >> > They should be charged with high >> > treason and as leaders deserve the highest penalty. If there >> > is no rule of law there can be no civilization. >> >> Isn't this political? I think raving comments of almost any ilk (almost) are acceptable in tag lines. I suspect that that one may push the boundaries. At the severe risk of adding oil to troubled fires (and mixing metaphors) I'll say that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the above is true AND that it is true for almost any US leader of note ever, and in suitably reworded terms to a significant proportion of all world leaders in general. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, even when one is a decent bloke (Kiwi expression) before during and after. At least one recent US President will, in due course, when the social pendulum again swings as it does over decades, be accused of supporting serious crimes against humanity amongst his own people by a majority of his own people. If you can think of examples of what I am talking about then do something useful with the thought. Naming such things openly on list will only demonstrate that so far opinions are about equally divided. Winston Churchill would have been hung for war crimes if the Allies had lost (and probably should have been anyway 'pour encouragement les autres' :-) ). Few would disagree what should have happened to Stalin. Or Kissinger! :-) :-(. Or If the Japanese had won WW2 (as there was no risk of their doing at the time) then many heads would have rolled (probably literally) over the A bombing of Japanese cities (no matter how many lives it may have saved)(or what message it may have sent to the Russians). US soldiers committed individual war crimes in WW2 (and no doubt since) which were acceptable only because they were the victors. And so have many soldiers of most armies before and since. The crimes of many of those found guilty at Nuremberg, including those sentenced to death, were in most cases (with the exception of those related to mass extermination) paralleled by those committed by the Allies or were standard fare had such situations arisen. Commandos in uniforms from the other side, civilian reprisals (in the US procedures manuals), invasion of neutral countries (Germany preceded Great Britain into neutral protesting Norway only because the weather was bad the day the British invasion fleet was due to sail, Invasion without declaration of war (US & UK into French north Africa) etc. I'm not saying that bad or worse behaviour should be excused, just that railing about abuses that are very publicly known and which are more or less approved of by about half of the voting public is fairly pointless. There are many dark deeds done in obscurity and these are generally more worthy of attention, if known about. RM _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist